Restroom? To a kid, it was simply a toilet

ROBERT GARDNER

* EDITOR’S NOTE: The Daily Pilot has agreed to republish The Verdict,

the ever-popular column written for many years by retired Corona Del

Mar jurist and historian Robert Gardner, in exchange for donations to

the Surfrider Foundation. This particular column was originally

published in April 1993.

When I was a small boy, there was a building at the corner of

Washington Street and Bay Avenue in Balboa called a comfort station.

It really was a public toilet. I always wondered why they called it a

comfort station.

In addition to a couple of scruffy toilets with no seats, it had

one of those Mexican cantina-style urinals, a wall down which water

ran to a trough below. That trough was usually clogged with cigarette

butts. For some reason, men seem to save their cigarette butts just

to throw them into urinals. Because of all those cigarette butts, the

trough was usually clogged and the floor of the comfort station was

usually wet. Since I was always barefooted, this wasn’t a very

comfortable arrangement.

So I always wondered why they called it a comfort station.

Then they changed the name and called it a public restroom. This

really baffled me. While it was possible to obtain a measure of

comfort in spite of the wet floor, you certainly couldn’t get any

rest in the place. Why call it a restroom? I must admit that one

small boy was in a state of considerable confusion. Why didn’t they

just call it a toilet?

Since that time, I have wondered about the reluctance of the

American people to call a toilet a toilet. As far as I know, the word

has no obscene or even vulgar meaning. The French are more direct.

They call their public toilets “pissoirs.” The British, while not as

direct as the French, at least call them WCs, meaning, of course,

water closets. However, they don’t call them comfort stations or

restrooms.

And so it is with normal conversation. We never, never, never use

the word toilet. For those men with a Navy background, it is, of

course, the head. For those with an army background, it is a latrine.

For those men without a military background, it is the can or the

john. (I’ve never known whether to capitalize that word or not.) For

women, it is, of course, the powder room. But for no one is it a

toilet.

We even carry this reluctance to use the word toilet into the

plans for our homes. I accept the use of the word bathroom for a room

that contains a toilet with either a bathtub or a shower.

But if a room has only a toilet, why call it a half-bath? Why not

call it a toilet? You can’t take a half-a-bath in the room. Well,

maybe you could, but it would be awkward.

I have a suggestion as to a way to get around all this dithering

avoidance of the word toilet. Why not call it a privy? Oh, I know

that the word has long been associated with outhouses, but I have

done some deep research and found that the word has a much broader

meaning. According to the dictionary, the word privy means “a toilet,

water closet or the like.”

I particularly like the “or the like” part of the definition. That

effectively covers whatever space-age scientific ingenuity can come

up with in disposing of what we so delicately call human waste. If we

all start using the word privy when referring to a toilet, we can do

away with restrooms, comfort stations, heads, latrines, johns (or

Johns), cans, powder rooms, half-baths “or the like.”

Recognizing that this is a somewhat radical suggestion, I cannot

realistically believe that society is going to immediately and

enthusiastically begin to use the word privy to cover all devices

used to dispose of human waste. But in the meantime and as a step

forward, I suggest that we start calling public toilets comfort

stations rather than restrooms.

As I say, the use of one does afford a degree of comfort -- but

rest?

* ROBERT GARDNER, a Corona del Mar resident, is a former judge and

longtime observer of life in Newport Beach.